Best Female-Led TV Shows

Why The Best Thing On TV Right Now Is ...Women

Orange Is The New Black returns to Netflix this weekend for its eagerly-awaited fourth season, with all 13 episodes landing in time for one long binge. It's further proof that the ladies are bossing quality TV at the moment, so we're celebrating by counting down the top 10 female-led shows currently on television…

Angie Tribeca

Co-created by Steve Carrell, this underrated police spoof stars Parks & Recreation's Rashida Jones as a hardened detective who takes her job deadly seriously – while silliness and Naked Gun-style slapstick unfolds around her. It’s sort of a female Brooklyn Nine-Nine, set on the opposite coast: in the LAPD’s elite RHCU (Really Heinous Crimes Unit). The second series is currently airing in the States.

Broad City

F*** yeah, dude. Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson’s cult sitcom, developed from their YouTube series, is now on its third season – with four and five already commissioned. Exec-produced by Amy Poehler (who also makes cameos), Broad City follows two self-absorbed, in-your-face Jewish twentysomething slackers as they have sex, get stoned and just about navigate New York life, like a grungey Girls.

Mum

Assuming that it was just for oldies, many missed this subtle family sitcom from Him & Her creator Stefan Golaszewski– but it’s still on-air and on iPlayer, so there’s time to catch up. “Putting the fun into funeral”, it follows Cathy (the outstanding Lesley Manville) as she tries to move on from the death of her husband. Warm, subtle, beautifully observed and masterfully made, it’s turning out to be one of the home-grown TV treats of 2016 so far.

UnREAL

This surprisingly edgy drama is set behind the scenes of a Bachelor-style reality dating show, where a young producer Rachel (Shiri Appleby) is pushed by her demanding and unscrupulous boss Quinn (Constance Zimmer) to manipulate contestants, manufacture salacious TV and boost ratings. It’s smart, acerbic and twisty, with lots of on-set sexual shenanigans. The second season has just started.

Marvel’s Jessica Jones

The best superhero TV spin-off yet, this noir-style series stars Krysten Ritter as a troubled superheroine who hangs up her cape and opens her own NYC detective agency, Alias Investigations. She drinks too much. She suffers post-traumatic stress disorder. She kicks criminal butt. With Carrie-Anne “The Matrix” Moss as a lesbian attorney and David “Doctor Who” Tennant as terrifying villain Kilgrave,Jessica Jones is down, dirty and pleasingly dark.

Veep

Seinfeld alumnus Julia Louis-Dreyfus has been collecting Emmys for five seasons now in this US cousin to our own political satire, The Thick Of It. As Vice President (and for the last two series, President) Selina Meyer, she and her gaffe-prone team stumble through the Washington DC minefield, swearing and backstabbing as they go. With Brits both leading the Veep writing team and behind the camera, it’s as close to a sarky Britcom as American comedy gets.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Tina Fey’s sort-of-sequel to the mighty 30 Rock is this endearingly daft sitcom about doomsday cult survivor Kimmy (the ace Ellie Kemper), who tips up in Manhattan having been down a hole for 15 years. Naive, misinformed (she follows photos with “Hashbrown no filter” and thinks MILF stands for “My Interesting Lady Friends”) but relentlessly perky, she moves in with scene-stealing room-mate Titus Andromedon and heartwarming LOLZ ensue. A third series lands next spring.

Girls

Lena Dunham’s HBO hipster-com has had its ups and downs over five seasons but remains a remarkable piece of work, with each episode like a half-hour indie film. Its portrayal of four young women figuring out life and love in Brooklyn takes in everything from body issues to drug addiction, mental health to city politics – being hilariously perceptive about all the above. The most recent run was a return to form, the next will be its sixth and final series. Cherish it while we can.

Happy Valley

Writer Sally Wainwright’s Bafta-winning drama set in rural West Yorkshire isn’t your average cop show. The staggeringly brilliant Sarah Lancashire plays Sgt Catherine Cawood: world-weary policewoman, reluctant grandmother and even more reluctant heroine, as she brings in murderers, wipes up spilt blood and picks up the pieces. This year’s second series was almost as superlative as the first. Blackly funny, too.

Orange Is The New Black

Immersive, epic, endlessly entertaining but inexorably darkening in tone, the ensemble comedy-drama set at Litchfield Penitentiary is the streaming service’s most-watched show, gobbles up awards wins and has just been renewed for three more seasons. OINTB’s also been a game-changer in terms of diversity, enriching the Hollywood landscape with actresses of different ages, races and sexualities. But mainly, it’s a (prison) riot.

AskMen, Become a Better Man, Big Shiny Things, Mantics and guyQ are among the federally registered trademarks of Ziff Davis Canada, Inc. and may not be used by third parties without explicit permission.